History: Monuments, Events

History of Kazakhstan

The territory of present day Kazakhstan has come to be mastered by man nearly a million years ago. As early as the age of Lower Paleolithic the ancient man settled down on Kazakhstan lands perfectly fit for living, rich with wild fruit and animals. It is there that they have found ancient settlements of Stone Age in Kazakhstan. As the centuries past by Middle and Upper Paleolithic ages the man came to master Central and Eastern Kazakhstan and Mangyshlak area of Central Asia.

Ancient and medieval history of Kazakhstan

As have been shown by excavations of the Neolithic settlement Botay in the Northern parts of Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan constitutes the area of horse-mastering (breeding) and that of formation of nomad civilizations in Central Asia. Archeologists revealed dwellings, numerous hand-made articles of stone and ivory which present the ancient history and archeology of Kazakhstan in the Stone epoch in an altogether new way.

Kazakhstan Bronze Age

As early as the Bronze Age in Kazakhstan, some four millennia ago, the territory of Kazakhstan was inhabited by tribes of the so called Andron and Begazy-Dandybay culture. They were engaged in farming and cattle-breeding on the land of Kazakhstan, they were also fine warriors who handled combat chariots marvelously. To this day we can see images of chariots drawn on rocks where ancient people were arrangning their tribalal temples and sanctuaries with the firmament as their natural cover. On the surfaces of black cliffs burnt with the sun people of Kazakhstan would chisel out scenes of dances, images of sun-headed deities, mighty camels and bulls as impersonations of ancient gods.


Burial mounds of noble warriors scattered all throughout Kazakhtan steppes are known for magnificent size of mounds and burial vaults proper. Particularly famous are such necropolis in the steppes of Sary-Arka in Kazakhstan and Tagiskent in the Transaral area. People of that epoch were not only fine warriors, shepherds and farmers but also skilled metallurgists. They would take bronze and manufacture axes, knives, daggers and various decorations thereof.
It were they who initiated development of copper which is being practiced to this day - they are Zhezkazgan and Sayak copper quarries of today. Ancient people of Kazakhstan lived in large settlements and ancient towns surrounded with walls and fosses. These towns were inhabited with warriors and craftsmen, priests and farmers. These tribes lived on the territory of Kazakhstan for about thousand of years - from the XVIIth century BC to IX-VIII centuries AD.


Later on they were ousted by Saks. This was the name given to this tribe by ancient Persians. The Chinese called them "se" whereas Greeks chose to call people of Kazakhstan Scythians. They were essentially nomads, semi-nomads and farmers. Yet, first and foremost, they were excellent horsemen. In fact Saks were the first ever horsemen in the world to master arrow-shooting at full tilt.


In VI-II centuries BC Saks set up their first state with its center in the Zhetysu (Semirechje) in South-East Kazakhstan. Kings of Saks were at the same time high priests. Saks had written language and mythology of their own, they were known for their well developed art of world standard labeled in research papers as "animal-styled art". Respective subjects were represented by predators and herbivorous animals and the struggle between them. Sheer masterpieces made in historic Kazakhstan of gold and bronze serve as exhibits of best museums of the world. Linguistic situation of Kazakhstan was just as complicated. As it traditionally believed, in the course of the first millennium BC the population of Kazakhstan was mostly represented by native speakers of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian languages. However, later, they are inclined to think that tribes of the Bronze Age, particularly those of Saks, included tribes that spoke prothoturkic languages.


In the Issyk burial mound that harbored the world-famous "Golden Man" they have found a silver bowl with bottom bore an inscription consisting of 26 characters. They have failed to read it to this day. Some think that the inscription is made in one of the Iranian languages, others insist on its prothoturkic origin. Anyway, this must be the very period that highlighted formation of the cast of mind and the language of medieval and modern Kazakhstan, their physiological stereotypes, in fact, of many an element of their culture, everyday life and folk rites of Kazakhstan.

Turk Kazakhstan

The middle of the first millennium AD is an important stage in the history of all Turks in general and Kazakhstan in particular. The period is marked with manifest changes in ethnic media: predominant now become Turk tribes which chose Altai as their natural center Written sources of the VI century register the term "Tyurk" which is pronounced as "Tutszyue" by the Chinese and as "Turk" by Sogdians.

Archeological study of Turkic monuments makes it possible to compare Kazakshtan Turks with certain Turk tribal associations. In the Sayano-Altai region they have identified certain archeological cultures that might be likened to early Kyrghyzes, early Kypchaks or early Oguzes. In the course of frequent wars and tribal discords, struggle for power and pastures a part of Turkic tribes that inhabited steppes and valleys of Kazakhstan moved southwards - to Central Asia ( say, Tyurgeshes, Karluks, Kypchaks, Uzbeks, Oguzes, Turkmens-Seldzhuks), to Asia Minor, to Caucasus (Turkmens and Seldzhuks), to Eastern Europe (Kangars and Pechenegs, Kypchaks-and-Polovtsians, Torks-and-Oguzes, black Klobuks and Karakalpakians).

Kazakhstan - Mongol Invasion.

Starting from the IV-th century up to the beginning of the XIII-th century the territory of Kazakhstan was the seat of West-Turkic, Tyurgesh, Karluk Kaganates, of the state made by Oguzes, Karakhanides, Kimeks and Kypchaks. All of them successively replaced one another up to the very Mongol invasion. After the invasion of Kazakhstan territory, i.e. in the beginning of the XIIIth century, it shaped up uluses of the Mongol Empire of Zhuchi-Khan and Zhagatai which later gave birth to Ak-Orda, Mongolistan and finally to Kazakhstan Khanate.

Essentially all of these states had mixed economies. Tribes of cattle-breeders had farming tribes as their neighbors, Kazakhstan steppes and cities supplemented each other. Such cities as Taraz, Otrar, Ispijab, Talkhir were set up right in the way of the Grand Silk Route which served as a reliable link joining antiquity and Middle Ages, the West and the East: Japan, Korea and China with Central Asia, Iran, the State of Seldzhuks, Russia, Byzantium, France and Italy.

Kazakhstan - Silk Road

Through the Great Silk Road arts of folt dances, painting, architecture and music made their way from one city to another. It was the way along which various religions advanced: Manicheism and Buddhism, Christianity and Islam with the later becoming predominant (starting from the VIIIth century) and subsequently the only faith of Kazakhstan. In late XIV - early XVth century on the bank of the Syrdaria-river, in the city of Turkestan in Kazakhstan they built a religious sacred place worshipped by all Turkic-speaking nations - a complex of Khodja Akhmed Yasavi.

The nation that inhabited the territory of Kazakhstan avidly absorbed and assimilated all the ideas and achievements of various civilizations making - in its turn - its own contribution to the treasury of world culture, with its' economy or handicraft or music: among numerous accomplishments is an example of a mobile dwelling alled yurta, saddle and stirrups for a horse, combat art on horse-back, carpet ornaments and silver jewelery, great melodies and music reminding of an impetuous gallop of steppe horses of Kazakhstan.

All these factors have determined by integrity and continuity of ancient and medieval history of Kazakhstan.